I think I have a new repeating meme. Its called, #ThingsIFind looking up other things. I guess being a court jester, I like to laugh. So this magazine/newspaper article tickled my fancy. It is from a magazine named, Przekroj in 1956. I am taking its name to mean “Cross-Section” (please can a native Pole or someone else fluent in Polish correct me). I did not think this magazine would answer my research question, but I could not resist the cover’s picture of Polish Bison. Now Stanczyk has always had a penchant for fiction and who doesn’t cut their teeth on science fiction, so when I saw “Stanislaw Lem“, I knew him from when I used to buy Sci-Fi books. What intrigued me was the little illustration to his article. Such whimsy!

Ijon Tichy is one of Stanislaw Lem’s characters. This article of his is: ” The Star Diaries”.

Tichy is a space explorer whose interplanetary experiences are chronicled in The Star Diaries. He also moves in scientific circles on Earth; he is invited to the Futurological Congress in Costa Rica and his endorsement and approval are sought by a number of researchers and inventors on the edge of their field, such as Doctor Diagoras who has developed an artificial intelligence which is independent of mankind, and Decantor who has invented an immortal soul.

Tichy himself is the narrator in all the stories in which he appears. Sometimes he is the main protagonist; sometimes he merely serves to introduce some other character who has a story to tell. He is unmarried, usually well-meaning, accident-prone, and commendably honest about his failures, which include (thanks to another unfortunate experience with time) the entire Universe as we know it.